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Hi, I installed a program I needed by just untaring it to a directory in my home folder. It wasn't available through the apt-get installer and I doubt it's available from any PPAs, as it's a fairly obscure program.

Now I'd like to add it to my desktop so I don't have to manually navigate to the directory and type ./PROGRAMNAME to launch it. How can I add it to my deskop, and preferably to the application menu also?

Adding it to the menu will vary slightly depending on what desktop environment you're using, but creating a shortcut on the desktop should be pretty much the same anywhere.Right click on the desktop and choose "Create Launcher" or "Create Shortcut", whatever your particular file manager says.You should be presented with a "Create Launcher" popup window. Leave the Type as Application, enter whatever name you see fit, then use "browse" to select the program you've been launching. Optionally you can add a comment, but it isn't mandatory. Also, if an icon isn't selected automatically, you can click on the image towards the left to choose a different icon.

You should also be able to right click on the file you're executing and select "Create link", then cut and paste that link to the desktop. In my experience this doesn't work for all applications/paths, but it works for the most part.

hello jms, in order to get it exicute correctly you need to create a .desktop file and place it in /usr/share/applications.here a page telling you how to do that.Then just copy the created file to your Desktop folder if you want it on your desktop.